Automatic categorization

Most transactions get a category without you touching them. Buoy decides in this order:

1. Your rules always win. See below.
2. Plaid’s category is used when Plaid is confident and you haven’t overruled it for that merchant before.
3. The AI sorts the rest, starting from how you’ve categorized similar transactions. This covers the current and previous month.

While it works you’ll see “AI is categorizing N new transactions…”.

The AI step needs AI features switched on in Settings → AI Assistant. With them off, transactions Plaid wasn’t sure about stay uncategorized for you to sort.

Run it yourself

Auto-Categorize on the Transactions page sorts anything still uncategorized. The first time, Buoy asks you to turn on AI features.

Review

When the AI isn’t confident, the transaction waits for you. A card reads “N transactions need review”; tap Review to accept, change or skip each one. Skipped items come back after two days, and Forget them clears older ones.

Rules

A rule files every transaction from a merchant under one category, for example “Always file Costco as Groceries”.

Rules are created from a prompt that appears after you change a transaction’s category. The prompt is off by default: turn on Settings → Offer to create rules after corrections, then change a category and accept “Always file (merchant) as (category)?”.

To see your rules, open Settings → Categorization Rules. Each rule shows the merchant, the category it files to and how often it has been used. Pause a rule to let your bank and the AI decide again, or delete it. Past transactions keep their category either way. A rule shared by another family member can only be changed by them.

Categorization is included on every plan.